The congregation moved to the Santa Marta Hospital, between Plaza Virgen de los Reyes and Plaza del Triunfo.
History
It was founded in 1591 by Juan de la Barrera, a man who had made his fortune in America and who, having no offspring, bequeathed his heritage to pious works. In his will, drawn up on April 20, 1591, he donated some houses in the Plaza de San Bartolomé for the construction of a convent but, if it was not agreed to found it in that place, he gave his authorization to sell them and build it in another place. In the will he stipulated that he should be buried in his church, on whose main altar the mystery of the Annunciation should go, and that there should also be two altars dedicated to the saints John. The convent had to be subject to the dean and the cathedral chapter and would have a maximum of 40 nuns, with the founder's relatives having preference to enter, who could do so without contributing a dowry.
Juan de la Barrera died on April 25 of that same year and his testamentary executor, Hernando Vallejo, was in charge of fulfilling his will. He decided to build the convent in the neighborhood then known as Ponce de León, because Pedro Ponce de León had his house there. Before this neighborhood was called Morillo.
When the convent was built, the square in which it was located took its name, Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación.
In 1598 the main door was already carved, on which the architect Alonso Vandelvira and the sculptors Andrés Ocampo and Martín Alonso de Mesa are working. The works were directed, by order of the executor, by the master bricklayer Diego Rodríguez.
Once the main part was built, the approval of the Holy See was requested, which came with the bull of Pope Clement VII on January 23, 1600. In 1602 the chapter accepted its role in the management of the convent and that same year the closure was closed.
In 1603, some experts valued the work carried out at 45,864 reales. That is all that was contributed at the beginning for the realization of the convent. The rest of the money used until its completion, which cost 40,000 ducats, came from the dowry of the nuns who entered.
As the first abbess, a Cistercian nun from the Convent of Santa María de las Dueñas , Beatriz de Vallejo, a relative of Hernando Vallejo, was chosen. She is she will hold the position 24 years.
Juan Vallejo, son of Hernando Vallejo, under the pretext of certain debts left by the founder, even mortgaged the dors of the nuns. And, 38 years after the foundation, due to a claim by creditors, all the assets of the convent are seized. A judicial administrator was in charge of all this until 1650, when Juan Vallejo obtained said administration. He withdrew from the administration, pressured by creditors and by a court judgment issued against him, for missing the nuns 50 ducats for food. Finally, in 1656, the court granted the convent and its abbess the administration of its assets and income.
Between 1674 and 1679 the main altarpiece was made by Francisco Dionisio de Ribas, in cedar wood and alijo. The altarpiece was moth-eaten and was repaired by Fernando Barahona, who had to remove all the stash wood and replace it with Flanders pine. Between 1691 and 1693 the restoration was gilded and braised by Miguel de Parrilla. In the second half of the 17th century, the nuns buy new houses to increase the convent.
In a lateral altarpiece located on the Gospel side of the church, in front of the door of the temple, under which the venerable Jesuit priest Fernando de Mata was buried, there was a painting of Juan de Roelas with the Immaculate and the venerable one kneeling next to she. Today this painting is in the Berlin State Museums .
At the beginning of the 18th century the economic situation of the convent was bad. They had to resort to money from the nuns' dowries for food and went to the cathedral chapter, to which they were subject, to be helped. They must not have received much help, because on September 29, 1710, the abbess and her twelve nuns went to the cathedral to ask for help, preceded by a raised cross carried by her sacristan. The dean intervened and ordered the nuns to be taken to the main sacristy, from where he had them return to their convent in horse-drawn carriages to avoid the curiosity of the people. After this departure, aid to the convent increased. The council agreed to give him 200 fanegas of wheat and 200 ducats. To prevent the event from being repeated, the visitor deprived the abbess of her position and her companions of "active and passive voice".
In 1705, the Marquis of Dos Hermanas tried to obtain patronage of the convent alleging that he was the successor of Juan Vallejo, who acted as patron. The abbess and the nuns opposed these pretensions, since since 1656 the abbess enjoyed full autonomy from her patrons by a judgment of the Court. There was a judicial process but, finally, it ended with a favorable sentence for the nuns in 1718.
In 1810 the French invasion of Seville took place . On April 28, the decree, signed by José Bonaparte in the Alcázar, for the "formation of a public square on the land occupied by the block between the Regina and Encarnación squares" was published in the "Gazeta de Sevilla". The same decree orders that the nuns be transferred to another convent. The visitor proposed that the nuns be transferred to the Convent of Our Lady of Peace , also Augustinian, but the nuns did not want to be merged with another convent, so on June 10 they moved to the Convent of the Thirds , which had been exclaustrated .
The original convent was demolished for the construction of the aforementioned square. On December 11, 1813, Ferdinand VII ordered that all the religious be returned to their possessions, but these Augustinian nuns no longer had a place to return to. In 1815 the abbess María Josefa Rodríguez de León wrote a statement to the nuncio to prevent the transfer of her community to the Convent of Nuestra Señora de la Paz alleging that most of that convent was in ruins.
The cathedral chapter gave them the church and the choir of the Hospital de Santa Marta. The nuns received two houses adjoining the hospital as a donation. They moved to their new headquarters on December 21, 1819 and, the next day, the third parties returned to their respective convent.
During the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the chapter continued to reserve the right to deposit the corpses of the canons in its church, until they were transferred to the cemetery.
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